03 Star Trekkers 01

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00:00This is BBC2 broadcasting from the Final Frontier.

00:15Hailing frequencies open, sir.

00:20Now on BBC2's Star Trek night,

00:23men and women distinguished in fields other than Trekkie trivia reveal all.

00:27Labour MP Paul Boateng and actress Josie Lawrence

00:31with the first of this evening's hotshot Star Trekkers.

00:58I didn't think I could ever like Star Trek The Next Generation.

01:01I felt it would be a kind of betrayal to like it.

01:04And I was a little bit worried when I heard the theme tune of The Next Generation

01:09because I hated it and I still do.

01:11I still think they should have kept that lovely woman singing her guts out, you know.

01:15But I did actually fall in love with The Next Generation.

01:19I kind of grew up with it.

01:21Because The Next Generation is a kind of more adult look at the Enterprise, I feel.

01:27And it also has a real wonderful man at the head of it.

01:33And that is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who is very sexy, a great leader.

01:39This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise.

01:43I don't want to put Captain Kirk down, I think he's wonderful,

01:45but there was always a bit of the lad in Captain Kirk

01:48and you knew he'd always end up snogging one of the alien ladies in their big pointy bras.

01:52You know, you knew that would happen.

01:53But with Jean-Luc Picard, he's a true born leader.

01:57He's solid.

01:59He has the most wonderful voice.

02:03He's very intelligent and you can tell that he loves art and music

02:10and that he'd listen to you.

02:13And I think every woman wants to find a man that would listen to her.

02:16I love his first line, you know, space, the final frontier.

02:29I mean, we're used to saying it, you know, space, the final frontier.

02:32Space, the final frontier.

02:33And there's just something so wonderful in the way he says that line.

02:37He has an emphasis on the word final, which is wonderful.

02:40It's sort of space, the final frontier.

02:43And you think, oh, yes, it is. It's final, isn't it?

02:46Space, the final frontier.

02:51I have many, many favourite episodes of The Next Generation.

02:56But one of the most unusual, I find, is perhaps quite a quiet, moving episode

03:02and it's called The Inner Light.

03:04A nucleonic beam strikes through the shields of the Enterprise

03:10and knocks Picard out.

03:12Well, finally.

03:13How are you feeling?

03:14Cayman?

03:15Can you answer me?

03:16What is this place?

03:17And he finds himself on a strange planet, in a strange house.

03:19He has a wife, he has friends in the village.

03:21He lives 30 years in 30 minutes of this different kind of life.

03:28And it's wonderful because it gives us the chance to see Captain Jean-Luc Picard living the life of a family man through an entire episode.

03:35There's also wonderful detail in this planet where he lives.

03:42My favourite thing of all is the saucepan.

03:43His wife says, you know, I've made you your favourite soup.

03:49And he goes, it's delicious.

03:50And she goes, you always say that.

03:51And she has this most fantastically horny saucepan.

03:56I mean, I would love something like that in my kitchen.

03:57There's something about stepping on to the Enterprise ship.

04:02You don't question anything that happens.

04:03The most amazing things can happen.

04:04They mess about with time all the time.

04:05You know, they go, it's all.

04:06And it's all.

04:07And it's all.

04:08It's all.

04:09Is the saucepan.

04:10His wife says, you know, I've made you your favourite soup.

04:11And he goes, it's delicious.

04:12And she goes, you always say that, you know.

04:13And she has this most fantastically horny saucepan.

04:17It's delicious.

04:18It's delicious.

04:19It's delicious.

04:20It's delicious.

04:21It's delicious.

04:22It's delicious.

04:23It's delicious.

04:24I mean, I would love something like that in my kitchen.

04:26There's something about stepping on to the Enterprise ship.

04:29You don't question anything that happens.

04:30The most amazing things can happen.

04:31They mess about with time.

04:32All the time.

04:33You know, they go backwards, forwards, in the middle, roundabout.

04:35And you accept it.

04:36You don't question it and say, well, that wouldn't work.

04:38That's not right.

04:39Better get that beam back.

04:40You step into their world with them.

04:43There are certain things in this world that I always know,

04:46hopefully will stay with me.

04:48One is Coronation Street and the other is Star Trek.

04:55Well, any child, and I'm an unrepentant child of the 60s,

04:58growing up in that time.

05:00I mean, Star Trek was where you sort of went to after Doctor Who.

05:04You were grown up now.

05:05And it was gripping and entertaining stuff.

05:07It was a sort of TV that I watched as light relief

05:12from a sort of O-level orientated life.

05:15For me, a libidous teenager, it had to be.

05:20And also one hungry for black images, because that was a time

05:24when you just didn't see black people on television.

05:27But there was this striking black woman, Lieutenant Uhura.

05:32Can't beat her.

05:34The way she looked at the camera, always adjusting that earpiece,

05:39the leg, the thigh.

05:41They seemed to be a massive expanse of thigh.

05:46The sensor section says the beams are working again.

05:48What about the other systems?

05:49Affirmative, Captain.

05:51I could see her now, as I speak, Lieutenant Uhura, waiting for the message to come in.

06:03Captain, transporter room just beamed up five persons.

06:06Lieutenant Uhura was, after all, a black woman in a position of responsibility.

06:10Lieutenant Uhura was competent.

06:15Always very competent.

06:16She was not the sort of woman that you would mess with.

06:20I mean, communications were her area, and she was in charge of it.

06:26Captain, the Columbus has returned from searching quadrant 779X by 534M.

06:31Results negative.

06:32Have them proceed to the next button.

06:34Any word from engineering on our sensors?

06:36They're working on them, sir.

06:37Still inoperable.

06:38Well, first of all, you didn't see black people.

06:43You saw Bill Cosby on I Spy, I think it was called.

06:50Mission Impossible had a black man, but you didn't see many black people,

06:55and you therefore saw a black person in a mainstream, high-profile TV series as being something special.

07:04Sir, sensor section reporting.

07:06Static interference still creating false images.

07:09Estimates 80% undependable.

07:11But whilst you didn't see very many black people on TV,

07:15you never saw black and white people together in any sort of romantic situation.

07:22It didn't happen.

07:23There was the occasional sort of arthouse film where it might happen,

07:27but in the TV world, in the world of TV, it didn't happen.

07:32I'm so frightened, Captain.

07:35I'm so very frightened.

07:38That's the way they want you to feel.

07:40And, of course, with Lieutenant Uhura, it did happen.

07:43There was that kiss.

07:44There was a black woman and a white man kissing on primetime TV.

07:50And I would see you so busy at your command.

07:53And I would hear your voice from all parts of the ship.

07:59And my fears would fade.

08:01And it created massive problems in the United States.

08:05They weren't happy about it.

08:07There had to be a special edition to be shown in the South.

08:11And even the one that we were allowed to see,

08:14there was a sense in which the two, as it were, didn't have any control over themselves.

08:18So, in some way, it was all right.

08:20Because, had they had their own minds, had they had their own consciousness,

08:24they wouldn't, maybe, have done it.

08:26Strange, sad times.

08:39At least Star Trek began to break some of those absurd barriers down.

08:45As you assumed.

08:46Was that a true concept.

08:48That promise was a true word for you and not?

08:50And perhaps注 Ji off the door.

08:51Whether today is a görg or wherever you need it.

08:53But that's aITY hero.

08:55You lead tobogganma, you bet.

08:57Anyway, you're there.

08:58Oh, ho, Barack Obama.

09:01Thanks, man.

09:02So, my goodnalista helmet.

09:04Can you visual Mike and his máster here on your top story?

09:07ситу Rick, again.

09:08I can feel it myself.

09:09Apparently very detailed in the red light.

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